In yet another case of blatant violation of child rights, a 12-year-old boy employed four years ago by a family was allegedly being beaten up for no fault of his and made to work for almost 15 hours a day. Unable to bear the torture any longer, the boy ran away over the weekend and approached the police through a Good Samaritan, following which he was produced before a Child Welfare Committee that has issued directions for registration of a case against the accused person(s).

The boy belongs to a poverty-stricken family from a village in Uttar Pradesh where his mother lives with a brother and two sisters. Owing to their poor economic condition, his mother could not afford his studies and he never went to school. At the age of eight, the…